


There Is No Good Way to Put 'Q' into the Name 'Rumpelstiltskin'

by SolarMorrigan



Series: Solar's 007 Fest 2020 [4]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Fairy Tale Retellings, Gen, this is 100 percent not serious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25555093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarMorrigan/pseuds/SolarMorrigan
Summary: Madeleine's father tells everyone she can spin straw into gold. This is obviously a lie, but the king buys into it and now Madeleine's been locked up in the castle with a room full of straw to spin into gold by morning or else she'll be executed. You know, standard fairy tale bullshit
Relationships: Madeleine Swann & Q
Series: Solar's 007 Fest 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1851796
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13
Collections: 007 Fest Fancreations





	There Is No Good Way to Put 'Q' into the Name 'Rumpelstiltskin'

**Author's Note:**

  * For [storm_of_sharp_things](https://archiveofourown.org/users/storm_of_sharp_things/gifts).



> Fill for the Collab Prompt Table, prompted by [stormofsharpthings](https://stormofsharpthings.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr! (Prompt was "subvert a fairy tale." Unfortunately, the details were then left up to me...)

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away, there was a young woman. We’ll call her Madeleine, because calling a character “the girl” throughout an entire story is tiring.

Madeleine was an intelligent and insightful young woman, which obviously would not fly during Medieval fairy tale times. Can’t have anyone making smart decisions in a fairy tale, much less a woman, so when people asked her father about her, he made some shit up. Instead of saying “oh, yes, she’s an intelligent and insightful young woman with many good thoughts in her head” (again, socially unacceptable), he said “oh, yes, she’s excellent at spinning. So good, in fact, that she can spin straw into gold” (much more socially acceptable, _clearly_ makes sense).

So this outrageous fucking lie makes it around the kingdom, because _what_ , until it reaches the ears of King Blofeld, who decides that if one of his subjects can spin gold from straw, he wants in on that. He comes round to Madeleine’s house with a spiel about how he’s going to take Madeleine to live up at the castle now and her father is pretty much like “SCORE” because he now gets to unload his troublesomely think-y daughter on the king. There is no downside to this, because when the king figures out that Madeleine _can’t_ spin gold, he will totally not blame the person who made the story up (i.e. _him_ ).

Because it’s all the woman’s fault.

But anyway, Madeleine doesn’t really get a say in this, and is taken up to the castle and locked in a room full of straw and told to spin it to gold, or else. Except Madeleine cannot do this because, if it has not been stated already, her father _fucking lied_. She tries to escape, but the room is sealed pretty tight, and after exhausting all her options, she is reduced to sitting moodily on a pile of straw and reciting lines about liars and killers in French like a weirdo.

But apparently someone can hear how salty she is about all of his because a man suddenly appears in the room. He has wild, dark hair and flashing eyes behind anachronistic spectacles that are there so you all know who it is I’m talking about even though I can’t say his name.

He asks Madeleine what’s got her so upset, and Madeleine explains that, broadly, society is patriarchal shit. But also she’ll be executed in the morning if she can’t spin all the straw in this room into gold.

The man says he can’t fix the first problem, but he can definitely help with the second.

“I can spin this straw to gold by morning,” the man promises, “but what will you give me, if I help you?”

“I’ll give you my ring,” Madeleine says promptly; it had been her father’s, anyway, and is ugly to boot. The weird guy can have it.

The weird guy looks it over curiously, nods, and then sits down at the spinning wheel and starts feeding in straw and spinning out fucking gold. Seriously. Just spools of gold thread.

Madeleine, who, like any rational person, was convinced this was impossible, is pretty damn interested. She watches the whole night as the man spins pile after pile of straw into gold. He works quietly and quickly and vanishes when he’s done.

You would think an entire room’s worth of straw would make enough gold to appease anyone, but King Blofeld is an unreasonable asshole, so he takes Madeleine to an even _bigger_ room filled with straw and tells her to spin _that_ to gold (why he has so many rooms filled with straw in his castle is anyone’s guess). So again, Madeleine is stuck, grumbling to herself, when the weird magic guy shows up.

“I can help you out again,” the man offers, “but what will you give me in return?”

“My necklace,” Madeleine says; it had belonged to her mother, but Madeleine really likes not being dead, so she hands it over.

The man works, steady and easy, and Madeleine watches. She asks him questions. He won’t tell her how he does it, and he won’t tell her his name, but he tells her other things. Stories of other strange tasks he’s done, people he’s met and bargained with. It sounds freeing to Madeleine.

When he finishes the task, he vanishes, conversation over and spools upon spools of golden thread for the king to find in the morning.

Of course, since things happen in threes in fairy tales, the king has yet _another_ room filled with straw for Madeleine to spin. This time, though, he promises her that if she spins all of this straw to gold, he will marry her.

Yay?

Nah, that sounds like a shitty deal, actually. Madeleine’s not keen.

She’s sitting, mulling it over, when the man appears again.

“I can spin this all to gold,” he says, gesturing around at the fucking ridiculous amount of straw, “but what will you give me in return?”

Madeleine shrugs. She’s all out of cherished family trinkets. “I have nothing to offer.”

The man eyes her, considering, because he’s some kind of magic and clearly Knows Something he’s not saying. “I’m sure you have something. Think it over while I spin.”

Madeleine thinks. She watches the man spin, feeding in straw and spooling out golden thread, and thinks, and wonders.

And as the sun is set to rise and the man finishes the task, she decides.

“I will give you my assistance and my attention,” she informs him. “I want to learn how to do what you do.”

The man smiles, like he was expecting this (probably was, the magical know-it-all weirdo), and holds out a hand for Madeleine. The thread is left for King Blofeld, as was the deal, and the man takes Madeleine away – not a prisoner, but an apprentice, never again to be subject to the whims of selfish men who think they own her (she’ll learn more than enough to make sure of that).

And then all of the important people lived happily ever after.

No one gives a shit what happened to any of the sucky characters, but they probably didn’t live happily ever after because they’re assholes.

The End.

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on [Tumblr](https://solarmorrigan.tumblr.com/post/623278845478518784/there-is-no-good-way-to-put-q-into-the-name)


End file.
